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This is actually something that I have taken a lot of time researching. I probably haven't tried every thumbnail organizing software out there but I have one I really like for Windows and nothing yet for the Mac.

The big problem I face is that so much of the image organizing software out there ignores your folder system and creates a flat database where all items (and sometimes that means ALL items--even things outside of what you'd care about, like images for odd pieces of software you happen to have installed) are organized by date.

I do employ a kind of date structure in organizing my pictures, but it is often the case that a shoot that starts on Monday ends early Tuesday morning. I don't want those images separated. I put them all into a folder with Monday's date (since that is when the shoot began). The folder will also contain (after the date) some comment about the shoot (perhaps a location, a person, or something else to remind me what I did on that date). For instance:

20070114_DiscoveryPark

I keep all of the image files named as the camera named them.

If I am going to manipulate an image it gets copied elsewhere. The name does not change so I am always able to return to the original if necessary. (Sometimes I do add to the manipulated file name so img2028.jpg might become img2028_850.jpg or some similar modification).

All three of the major pieces of software, Adobe's Bridge, Google's Picassa, and Apple's iPhoto, do this horrible thing. I have too many pictures to want to waste my time correcting their thinking about my organization (one camera shot more than 24,000 pictures last year).

In Windows I use Thumbsplus. It costs a little but it does what I tell it and does not presume to know better than me how I want to organize my photography:

http://www.cerious.com/download.shtml

I have not yet explored the world of tags, but that will come later. More importantly the above folder system does not require that I actually do anything except off-load the pictures from the camera into a folder. Tagging is "work" and if I'm going to "work" I'd rather get out and shoot some more.

The other thing that bothers me about so many of the image organizers is the way they do their slideshows. Thumbsplus will run a slideshow with or without sub-folders and linearly or in random order. Other slideshows will either offer random or sub-folders--not both. I'm sure this is due to the flat-folder assumption (no subs), but the ones that do support subs and don't do random is a curiosity.


James